Jeffrey Sachs - From His First Day in Office, Bush Was Ousting Aristide

[eablair3]

March 4, 2004

COMMENTARY

From His First Day in Office, Bush Was Ousting Aristide

Where were the media when Haiti's leader was railroaded and rousted?

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

If the circumstances were not so calamitous, the American-orchestrated removal of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from Haiti would be farcical.

According to Aristide, American officials in Port-au-Prince told him that rebels were on the way to the presidential residence and that he and his family were unlikely to survive unless they immediately boarded an American-chartered plane standing by to take them to exile. The United States made it clear, he said, that it would provide no protection for him at the official residence, despite the ease with which this could have been arranged.

Indeed, according to Aristide's lawyer, the U.S. blocked reinforcement of Aristide's own security detail. At the airport, Aristide said, U.S. officials refused him entry to the airplane until he handed over a signed letter of resignation.

After being hustled aboard, Aristide was denied access to a phone for nearly 24 hours, and he knew nothing of his destination until he and his family were summarily deposited in the Central African Republic. He has since been kept hidden from view. Yet this Keystone Kops coup has apparently not worked entirely according to plan: Aristide has used a cellphone to notify the world that he was forcibly removed from Haiti at risk of death and to describe the way his resignation was staged by American forces.

snip

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-sachs4mar04,1,4184344.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

[mr_hat]

1. Look at his eyes! It's clear he could have had WOMD!

[BlueEyedSon]

2. Same article, no registration req'd

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0304-06.htm